"We want the government and the ruling majority in the Sabor to change their position and we will see if they do it by autumn. If they do not, we can join in the demand for a referendum," SDP leader Ivica Racan said at a press conference in Zagreb on Monday.
Commenting on the government's plan to build a bridge that would connect the southern Peljesac peninsula to the mainland in order to bypass a short stretch of the Bosnian coast, Racan described the project as expensive, cost-ineffective and environmentally harmful, and said that an analysis conducted during his term as prime minister showed that it would be better to build a motorway through the Bosnian coastal town of Neum.
The SDP president reiterated that his party would participate in the next parliamentary election on its own, but that it was open to post-election coalitions with kindred parties. He confirmed that he was in talks with HSS leader Josip Friscic.
Asked if the HSS was the SDP's strategic partner, Racan said he saw that party as a potential partner.
Commenting on Friscic's statement that the Speaker of the Sabor, Vladimir Seks, should ask to be stripped of his parliamentary immunity until completion of an investigation into the murders of civilians in the eastern city of Osijek in the early 1990s, Racan stressed that Seks was not a suspect, but that stripping him of immunity would be necessary if the investigation showed his involvement in the crimes.